Bruce Springsteen: The Road to EGOT

Pete Chianca

Wednesday

Jan 10, 2018 at 12:04 PMJan 10, 2018 at 12:18 PM

Bruce Springsteen is halfway to Emmy-Grammy-Oscar-Tony status -- and we have a plan to get him all the way there.

There was a brief flurry of excitement on Twitter yesterday when, in discussion of a possible impending Tony nomination for "Springsteen on Broadway," it was suggested that Springsteen had already won an Emmy for HBO’s “Live From New York City,” meaning a Tony win would put him in the storied category of EGOT -- an artist who’s won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.

Sadly, it doesn’t seem as if “Live” would officially count as a Bruce Emmy win -- the awards for that special technically went to Thom Zimny (editor) and Jeff Ravitz (lighting designer) and Gregg Maltby (lighting director), not to Springsteen. But the fact remains that, if he’s able to secure a Tony, the path to EGOT would be more than within Springsteen’s reach.

For reference, there are currently 12 EGOTs -- mostly musical types who’ve been recognized for TV and movie work, with a few notable exceptions, like Mel Brooks and Whoopi Goldberg. Bruce of course picked up an Oscar in 1994 for “Streets of Philadelphia,” and has 20 Grammy wins under his belt. The Tony is arguably the toughest to procure, especially for a rock musician, so if Springsteen pulls that off he’s basically home free.

In fact, I would argue that in Bruce’s case there’s a way to kill two proverbial birds with one stone: When “Springsteen on Broadway” is ending its run, his Tony long since won, Springsteen & Co. should air the last show live on HBO. At that point he’d have done it so many times that there would be little guesswork involved, and as an added bonus the rest of us would get to sort-of capture what those lucky enough to get tickets will have already experienced.

Sure, he’d still have to win an Emmy for it -- but can you imagine a better choice for the brand-new “Variety Special (Live)” category being introduced at the 2018 Emmys? Some awards show? Please.

Not that awards make any difference in the long run -- the impact of Springsteen’s contributions are self-evident, trophies or not. But it would be pretty cool nonetheless.

Besides, if he wins, we could get him one of these -- it would go great with his vest collection.